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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 487 records · Page 27

Commercial PV Inverter IEEE 1547.1 Ride-Through Assessments Using an Automated PHIL Test Platform

As more countries seek solutions to their de-carbonization targets using renewable energy (RE) technologies, interconnection standards and national grid codes for distributed energy resources (DER) are being updated to support higher penetrations of RE and improve grid stability. Common grid-code revisions mandate DER devices, such as solar inverters and energy storage systems, ride-through (RT) voltage and frequency disturbances. This is necessary because as the percentage of generation from DER increases, there is a greater risk power system faults will cause many or all DER to trip, triggering a substantial load-generation imbalance and possible cascading blackout. This paper demonstrates for the first time a methodology to verify commercial DER devices are compliant to new voltage, frequency, and rate of change of frequency (ROCOF) RT requirements established in IEEE Std. 1547-2018. The methodology incorporates a software automation tool, called the SunSpec System Validation Platform (SVP), in combination with a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) system to execute the IEEE Std. 1547.1-2020 RT test protocols. In this paper, the approach is validated with two commercial photovoltaic inverters, the test results are analyzed for compliance, and improvements to the test procedure are suggested.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Portable diagnostic package for Thomson scattering and optical emission spectroscopy on Princeton field-reversed configuration 2 (PFRC 2)

An Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy funded diagnostic system has been deployed to the Princeton field-reversed configuration 2 (PFRC-2) device, located at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. The Portable Diagnostic Package (PDP), designed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, allows for the measurement of Thomson Scattering (TS) for electron density and temperature and Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) for ion temperature, impurity density, and ion velocity. A tunable spectrometer on the PDP with three gratings provides the flexibility to measure low (1 eV) and high (1000 eV) electron temperature ranges from TS. Additionally, using a second spectrometer, the OES diagnostic can survey light emission from various ion excitation levels for wide wavelength ranges. The electron density (<2 × 10 19 m –3 ) of plasmas generated in PFRC-2 has been below the PDP TS discrimination threshold, which has made TS signal detection challenging against a high-background of laser stray light. The laser stray light was iteratively reduced by making modifications to the entrance and exit geometry on PFRC-2. Rayleigh scattering experiments on PFRC have yielded the TS discrimination sensitivity to be >1 × 10 20 m –3 for the PDP. A recently implemented narrow-band notch spectral filter that masks the second harmonic 532 nm Nd:YAG laser wavelength has increased the system’s TS light discrimination sensitivity 65 times compared to the instance when the notch filter was not implemented. The hardware implementation including design changes to the flight tubes and Brewster windows will be discussed, along with results from Rayleigh and rotational Raman scattering sensitivity analyses, which were used to establish a quantitative figure of merit on the system performance. Further, the Raman scattering calibration with the notch filter has improved the PDP electron density threshold to 1 ± 0.5 × 10 18 m –3 .

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

TISCC: A Surface Code Compiler and Resource Estimator for Trapped-Ion Processors

We introduce the Trapped-Ion Surface Code Compiler (TISCC), a software tool that generates circuits for a universal set of surface code patch operations in terms of a native trapped-ion gate set. To accomplish this, TISCC manages an internal representation of a trapped-ion system where a repeating pattern of trapping zones and junctions is arranged in an arbitrarily large rectangular grid. Surface code operations are compiled by instantiating surface code patches on the grid and using methods to generate transversal operations over data qubits, rounds of error correction over stabilizer plaquettes, and/or lattice surgery operations between neighboring patches. Beyond the implementation of a basic surface code instruction set, TISCC contains corner movement functionality and a patch translation that is implemented using ion movement alone. Except in the latter case, all TISCC functionality is extensible to alternative grid-like hardware architectures. TISCC output has been verified using the Oak Ridge Quasi-Clifford Simulator (ORQCS).

LeBlond, Tyler↗

ORNL-QCI/TISCC

We introduce the Trapped-Ion Surface Code Compiler (TISCC), a software tool that generates circuits for a universal set of surface code patch operations in terms of a native trapped-ion gate set. To accomplish this, TISCC manages an internal representation of a trapped-ion system where a repeating pattern of trapping zones and junctions is arranged in an arbitrarily large rectangular grid. Surface code operations are compiled by instantiating surface code patches on the grid and using methods to generate transversal operations over data qubits, rounds of error correction over stabilizer plaquettes, and/or lattice surgery operations between neighboring patches. Beyond the implementation of a basic surface code instruction set, TISCC contains corner movement functionality and a patch translation that is implemented using ion movement alone. Except in the latter case, all TISCC functionality is extensible to alternative grid-like hardware architectures. TISCC output has been verified using the Oak Ridge Quasi-Clifford Simulator (ORQCS).

LeBlond, Tyler↗

Warm Front End Upgrade for the PIP-II Linac

The warm front end for the PIP-II Linac consists of an Ion-source, an RFQ, and four buncher cavities. The LLRF systems for these were the first ones developed more than a decade ago for use at the test stands. Some were VXI crate based, and others used early generation FPGA boards that are light in resources. These LLRF systems and the one for the first superconducting cryomodule, the HWR will be upgraded with the ARRIA 10 SOC-FPGA chassis with EPICS interfaces like the rest of the PIP-II Linac. The RFQ and the HWR have unique resonance control systems which are integrated into the LLRF controller hardware. The results of the initial testing with a cavity emulator will be presented.

Reyes, Lennon [Fermilab] (ORCID:0009000891155652)↗

Digital Twin Framework for PIP-II Linac: AI-Driven Multi-Scale Modeling from Ion Source to 800 MeV

The PIP-II linac will enable >1.2 MW beam power for DUNE, requiring unprecedented operational reliability across its warm front-end (RFQ, MEBT) and five distinct SRF sections operating at 162.5/325/650 MHz. We present a comprehensive digital twin framework uniquely combining a fully differentiable fast beam transport code with neural network surrogates trained on high-fidelity PIC simulations, capturing space charge and nonlinear dynamics beyond traditional envelope codes while achieving 10⁴ speedup at <1% accuracy. End-to-end differentiability enables gradient-based optimization across 500+ parameters simultaneously previously impossible with conventional tools while the model incorporates static/dynamic errors and serves as a virtual commissioning platform for diverse hardware integration. The framework facilitates reinforcement learning for pulsed/CW mode transitions, predictive maintenance through anomaly detection, and autonomous tuning algorithm development with real-time execution capability. Validation against physics simulations shows excellent agreement for the front-end, with initial results demonstrating potential for 30% commissioning time reduction and proactive fault mitigation, providing a scalable blueprint for operating next-generation high-intensity accelerators.

Pathak, Abhishek [Fermilab] (ORCID:000000021704208↗

Digital Twin Framework for PIP-II Linac: AI-Driven Multi-Scale Modeling from Ion Source to 800 MeV

The PIP-II linac will enable >1.2 MW beam power for DUNE, requiring unprecedented operational reliability across its warm front-end (RFQ, MEBT) and five distinct SRF sections operating at 162.5/325/650 MHz. We present a comprehensive digital twin framework uniquely combining a fully differentiable fast beam transport code with neural network surrogates trained on high-fidelity PIC simulations, capturing space charge and nonlinear dynamics beyond traditional envelope codes while achieving 10⁴× speedup at <1% accuracy. End-to-end differentiability enables gradient-based optimization across 500+ parameters simultaneously—previously impossible with conventional tools—while the model incorporates static/dynamic errors and serves as a virtual commissioning platform for diverse hardware integration. The framework facilitates reinforcement learning for pulsed/CW mode transitions, predictive maintenance through anomaly detection, and autonomous tuning algorithm development with real-time execution capability. Validation against physics simulations shows excellent agreement for the front-end, with initial results demonstrating potential for 30% commissioning time reduction and proactive fault mitigation, providing a scalable blueprint for operating next-generation high-intensity accelerators.

Pathak, Abhishek [Fermilab] (ORCID:000000021704208↗

Application of performance portability solutions for GPUs and many-core CPUs to track reconstruction kernels

Next generation High-Energy Physics (HEP) experiments are presented with significant computational challenges, both in terms of data volume and processing power. Using compute accelerators, such as GPUs, is one of the promising ways to provide the necessary computational power to meet the challenge. The current programming models for compute accelerators often involve using architecture-specific programming languages promoted by the hardware vendors and hence limit the set of platforms that the code can run on. Developing software with platform restrictions is especially unfeasible for HEP communities as it takes significant effort to convert typical HEP algorithms into ones that are efficient for compute accelerators. Multiple performance portability solutions have recently emerged and provide an alternative path for using compute accelerators, which allow the code to be executed on hardware from different vendors. We apply several portability solutions, such as Kokkos, SYCL, C++17 std::execution::par, Alpaka, and OpenMP/OpenACC, on two mini-apps extracted from the mkFit project: p2z and p2r. These apps include basic kernels for a Kalman filter track fit, such as propagation and update of track parameters, for detectors at a fixed z or fixed r position, respectively. The two mini-apps explore different memory layout formats. We report on the development experience with different portability solutions, as well as their performance on GPUs and many-core CPUs, measured as the throughput of the kernels from different GPU and CPU vendors such as NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.

Kwok, Ka Hei Martin↗

A Universal Controller for Grid-Forming Inverters in Microgrid during Islanding for Low Transient Current

This paper presents a universal controller to reduce the transient current during islanding of microgrid. In the proposed universal controller, two sets of semi-parallel paths are formed, where one set produces voltage and phase-angle references for the grid-following (GFL) mode, and the other set produces the voltage and phase-angle references for the grid-forming (GFM) mode of operation for the inverters. Herein, the controller enables an inverter to universally operate in GFL and GFM mode, whereas, only one set of voltage and phase-angle reference is engaged for PWM signal generation. When the microgrid is disconnected from the grid, the universal controller switches the voltage and phase-angle references from GFL to GFM mode. The proposed controller ensures lower transient current by keeping the two sets of semi-parallel paths synchronized throughout the operation of the inverter and enabling seamless transition between the modes. The proposed controller is verified through hardware experiments under different scenarios in a laboratory scale microgrid for inverters transitioning from GFL to GFM mode after islanding.

Sadeque, Fahmid↗

Facility to Alleviate Salt Technology Risks (FASTR): Design Report

The Facility to Alleviate Salt Technology Risks (FASTR) is a versatile, high-temperature (>600°C) molten chloride salt test facility designed to enable a variety of testing to advance the Generation 3 (Gen 3) Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) molten salt technology. FASTR includes a salt preparation system and a forced flow test loop with a suite of instrumentation. The FASTR loop is capable of 725°C operation and flow rates of 3–7 kg/s, and it includes heated and cooled sections and swappable components to enable testing of future vendor-supplied hardware. The salt preparation system supplies large batches (e.g., 200 kg) of clean salt for use in the FASTR forced convection loop. This report summarizes the design and capabilities of FASTR in its as-built form as of December 2022.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Facility to Alleviate Salt Technology Risks (FASTR): Commissioning Update

The Facility to Alleviate Salt Technology Risks (FASTR) is a versatile, high-temperature (>600°C) molten chloride salt test facility designed to enable a variety of testing to advance the Generation 3 (Gen 3) concentrated solar power (CSP) molten salt technology. FASTR includes a salt preparation system and a forced flow test loop with a suite of instrumentation. The FASTR loop is capable of operating at 725°C with flow rates of 3–7 kg/s, and it includes heated and cooled sections and swappable components to facilitate testing future vendor-supplied hardware. The salt preparation system supplies large batches of clean salt for use in the FASTR forced circulation loop. This report summarizes the shakedown and initial operation of the FASTR forced circulation loop through December 2022.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Application of performance portability solutions for GPUs and many-core CPUs to track reconstruction kernels

Next generation High-Energy Physics (HEP) experiments are presented with significant computational challenges, both in terms of data volume and processing power. Using compute accelerators, such as GPUs, is one of the promising ways to provide the necessary computational power to meet the challenge. The current programming models for compute accelerators often involve using architecture-specific programming languages promoted by the hardware vendors and hence limit the set of platforms that the code can run on. Developing software with platform restrictions is especially unfeasible for HEP communities as it takes significant effort to convert typical HEP algorithms into ones that are efficient for compute accelerators. Multiple performance portability solutions have recently emerged and provide an alternative path for using compute accelerators, which allow the code to be executed on hardware from different vendors. We apply several portability solutions, such as Kokkos, SYCL, C++17 std::execution::par and Alpaka, on two mini-apps extracted from the mkFit project: p2z and p2r. These apps include basic kernels for a Kalman filter track fit, such as propagation and update of track parameters, for detectors at a fixed z or fixed r position, respectively. The two mini-apps explore different memory layout formats. We report on the development experience with different portability solutions, as well as their performance on GPUs and many-core CPUs, measured as the throughput of the kernels from different GPU and CPU vendors such as NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.

Kwok, Ka Martin↗

Automating NISQ Application Design with Meta Quantum Circuits with Constraints (MQCC)

Near-term intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) computers are likely to have very restricted hardware resources, where precisely controllable qubits are expensive, error-prone, and scarce. Programmers of such computers must therefore balance trade-offs among a large number of (potentially heterogeneous) factors specific to the targeted application and quantum hardware. To assist them, we propose Meta Quantum Circuits with Constraints (MQCC), a meta-programming framework for quantum programs. Programmers express their application as a succinct collection of normal quantum circuits stitched together by a set of (manually or automatically) added meta-level choice variables, whose values are constrained according to a programmable set of quantitative optimization criteria. MQCC’s compiler generates the appropriate constraints and solves them via an SMT solver, producing an optimized, runnable program. We showcase a few MQCC’s applications for its generality including an automatic generation of efficient error syndrome extraction schemes for fault-tolerant quantum error correction with heterogeneous qubits and an approach to writing approximate quantum Fourier transformation and quantum phase estimation that smoothly trades off accuracy and resource use. We also illustrate that MQCC can easily encode prior one-off NISQ application designs-–multi-programming (MP), crosstalk mitigation (CM)—as well as a combination of their optimization goals (i.e., a combined MP-CM).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Development of an advanced ultrasonic phased array for the characterization of thick, reinforced concrete components (Final Scientific/Technical Report)

There are no nondestructive evaluation (NDE) tools capable of characterizing microscale damage throughout the thickness of concrete components, due to the multiphase, heterogeneous and multiscale nature of concrete. Ultrasound is only scattered by features at the same length scale, or smaller, than the wavelength of a wave’s dominant frequency. Successful imaging of microscale damage using ultrasound requires that the ultrasonic wavelength be on the order of a few millimeters (or smaller), yet the heterogeneous microstructure of concrete, with its fine and coarse aggregates, is on this same (and higher) micrometer/millimeter length scale, causing excessive ultrasonic wave scattering even in “good” concrete. The proposed solution applies non-collinear wave mixing to spatially image microscale damage, while still maintaining penetration through thick concrete components. This microscale imaging is possible by combining nonlinear wave mixing, with advanced phased array hardware and software to develop a breakthrough tool that will bring revolutionary changes in NDE of concrete infrastructure in terms of image resolution and depth of penetration. This work uses non-collinear wave mixing which exploits the physics that material nonlinearities such as microscale damage, cause interactions between two intersecting ultrasonic waves due to cross-mixing, which can lead to the generation of a third wave with a frequency and wave number of the sum or difference of the incident waves. The concrete material volume at this mixing point is characterized/imaged. This project delivered a single-sided nonlinear ultrasonic phased array imaging device, that can image microscale damage (microcracks of 100 micrometers) through a 0.5 m thick concrete component and assessed the commercial feasibility of such arrays for improved crack detection.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Multiphysics Time-Integration for Turbulent Combustion at the Exascale

Turbulent reacting flow systems are often modeled with coupled time-dependent partial differential equations (PDEs). Solving such equations can easily tax the world's largest supercomputers. One pragmatic strategy for attacking such problems is to split the PDEs into components that can more easily be solved in isolation. This generic operator-splitting strategy leads to a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that need to be solved as part of an "outer-loop" time-stepping approach. In many combustion applications, the ODEs to be solved can be very stiff, exhibiting timescales that span many orders of magnitude. The SUNDIALS library provides a plethora of robust time integration algorithms for solving these ODEs on exascale-capable computing hardware, yet for many complex applications (such multicomponent fuels or emissions predictions), the chemical models remain too complex to solve using reasonable resources. The Quasi-Steady State Approximation (QSSA) can be an effective tool for reducing the size and stiffness of the simulations. In this talk, I will discuss the use of the SUDIALS library of ODE solvers together with automatic code generation tools to solve complex turbulent reacting flow problems using QSSA models.

chemistry↗

Robust Disturbance Rejection Rotor Current Control of Doubly-Fed Induction Generators

This article proposes a robust transient disturbance rejection current controller (TDRCC) to improve the transient performance of doubly-fed induction generators (DFIGs) in wind turbines during grid disturbances, such as short circuits. Here, the proposed robust TDRCC replaces the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) current controllers conventionally used in the vector control scheme of the DFIG rotor side converter (RSC). The TDRCC estimates the transient disturbances caused by grid faults or other external disturbances and provides compensation to the DFIG rotor voltage in the current control loops of the RSC to improve the robustness of the controller to disturbance. A sliding-mode current controller (SMCC) is also designed to highlight the transient performance improvement of the DFIG using the TDRCC over the state-of-the-art control methods during grid short circuit faults. Simulation studies are conducted in PSCAD/EMTDC for a 3.6-MW DFIG wind turbine with the proposed TDRCC, the conventional PI controller, and the SMCC, respectively during the most severe balanced three-phase grid short circuit fault specified by the U.S. grid code as well as an unbalance single-phase grid short circuit fault. Hardware experiments are conducted on a 200-W DFIG wind turbine emulator with the three different controllers for the same three-phase short circuit fault. Simulation and hardware experiment results show that the TDRCC reduces the peak rotor current significantly when compared with the PI and SMCC controlled DFIG system and, therefore, would help prolong the lifespan of the DFIG's power electronics and reduce maintenance costs.

42 ENGINEERING↗

CRADA Number NFE-20-08292 with Quantum Lock Technologies LLC (CRADA Final Report)

At Quantum Lock Technologies, our mission is to use future-proof hardware and software to bridge the gap between physical access control and cyber security. Physical security includes access to doors, lockboxes/containers, and machinery/robots. Connecting physical access control to the cloud allows for remote detection, fast ledger updates, and mobile or remote access. However, this also opens physical security up to the world of cyber-attacks. At Quantum Lock, we use quantum random number generation to generate completely random and unpredictable digital keys to be used by connected equipment in a facility. This quantum technology is then paired with end-to-end encryption and a one-time-key communication protocol to ensure the highest level of security. Through the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we have developed benchtop prototypes of our technology, connected with utility boards as our first target customers, and prepared for our first pilot with customers (target end of summer 2022).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Quantum Lock Technologies: Innovation Crossroads Final Report

At Quantum Lock Technologies, our mission is to use future-proof hardware and software to bridge the gap between physical access control and cyber security. Physical security includes access to doors, lockboxes/containers, and machinery/robots. Connecting physical access control to the cloud allows for remote detection, fast ledger updates, and mobile or remote access. However, this also opens physical security up to the world of cyber-attacks. At Quantum Lock, we use quantum random number generation to generate completely random and unpredictable digital keys to be used by connected equipment in a facility. This quantum technology is then paired with end-to-end encryption and a one-time-key communication protocol to ensure the highest level of security. Through the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we have developed benchtop prototypes of our technology, connected with utility boards as our first target customers, and prepared for our first pilot with customers (target end of summer 2022). Below is a photograph of myself at an energy substation where we plan to eventually apply our technology.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗